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Punching Above Its Weight, a Brown Dwarf Launches a Parsec-Scale Jet

Astronomers using the SOAR telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory report the discovery of a spectacular extended jet from a young brown dwarf. With masses too low to sustain hydrogen fusion in their interiors, brown dwarfs occupy the mass range between stars and giant planets. While young stars are commonly found to launch jets that extend over a light year or more, this is the first jet with a similar extent detected from a brown dwarf. The result lends new insight into how substellar objects form.

Intrinsically faint, brown dwarfs have been more elusive and difficult to study than stars. Although they are often portrayed as exotic creatures as a result, brown dwarfs are actually far more numerous in our Galaxy than stars like the Sun.

The discovery, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal, supports the emerging picture that brown dwarfs form similarly to stars.

The image shows the jet, HH 1165, launched by the brown dwarf Mayrit 1701117 in the outer periphery of the 3 million year old sigma Ori cluster. Traced by emission from singly ionized sulfur, which appears green in the image, the jet extends 0.7 light years (equivalent to 0.2 parsecs) northwest of the brown dwarf. The emission knots along the jet reveal that the mass loss is time variable, probably a result of episodic accretion onto the brown dwarf. The red nebulosity southeast of the brown dwarf is a reflection nebula that traces the outflow cavity in the direction of the counterjet.

The SOAR Telescope at sunset on Cerro Pachón, Chile. Image Credit: Cesar Briceño (CTIO-SOAR) Astronomers using the SOAR telescope at CTIO have discovered a spectacular extended jet from a young brown dwarf. While young stars are known to launch jets that extend over a light year or more, this is the first such jet from a brown dwarf. The discovery, made by a team that includes NOAO astronomers Cesar Briceno and Steve Heathcote, lends new insight into how substellar objects form.